The developmental life course perspective (DLC) focuses attention on the socio-historical context in which we live our lives as it influences opportunities and life events that produce cumulative advantage or disadvantage. These large contextual forces shape preference and behavior, and it is within this context that the individual exerts personal agency. This perspective has particular utility as a conceptual framework for human behavior and the social environment courses as it integrates individual-level behavior within a social forces context. This article describes the DLC and its application as both a conceptual and an organizing framework for human behavior and the social environment courses at the masters level. It is illustrated with a case example. KEYWORDS Developmental life course model, life span modelThe developmental life course (DLC) perspective (Elder & Shanahan, 2006) examines individual development as a function of socially organized patterns and related processes. The focus of the DLC is upon understanding trajectories of human development as they are shaped by the constantly changing environment consisting of the historical time and place of one's life, ascribed and achieved statuses, the occurrence of significant life events and transition points, interconnection within social networks, and the exercise of personal agency in shaping one's choices. DLC-focused research has contributed to our understanding of environmental impact both on individual development and on the mechanisms of resilience. As such, the DLC offers a useful conceptual framework to teaching course content within the human behavior and the social environment (HBSE) requirement. Not only does it offer a bridge between content on individual and macro level processes, it offers much-needed empirical depth in its conceptualization of the person-inenvironment approach. The lack of empirical support within HBSE curricula has been noted by Zaparanick and Wodarski (2004). The goal of this article is to describe the DLC and its application to both the content and the instruction of a HBSE curriculum. A case example is provided.
Social scientists have allocated a great deal of time to trying to understand the determinants of civic/political engagement. They, along with physicists, have also shown some interest in social networks, some in the question of the association between such networks and civic/political engagement. This paper builds on this work by exploring the extent to which the association between one's neighborhood network and the chance that one has taken part in a march, boycott, or demonstration varies by gender. We did several types of analyses. Initially, we used conditional probabilities to explore the relationship between neighborhood network and the chance that one has taken part in a march, boycott, or demonstration. After pointing out the problems with these conditional probabilities, we conducted logistic regression on a data set of 1897 females and 1521 males from the United States. We found that males whose neighbors give them a sense of community had about one and a half times the odds of having taken part in a march, boycott, or demonstration over the previous twelve months compared to males whose neighbors do not give them such a sense. For females, there appeared to be no such association between neighborhood network and the chance of having taken part in a march, boycott, or demonstration.
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